Ref. 75862-62A SENIOR investigator was on his way to Iraq today to search for clues into what happened to the Hercules aircraft lost on Sunday.

Mystery still surrounds what happened to the C-130K Hercules, the aircraft numbered XV179 pictured right one of 50 based at RAF Lyneham.

The low-flying Hercules, which is renowned for its reliability, came down in clear conditions in the desert north of Baghdad, with its wreckage scattered over a wide area.

The plane was transporting nine RAF personnel, of which seven are from Lyneham, and one soldier on a "routine operational flight" from Baghdad International Airport when it crashed.

The Ministry of Defence is due to release the names of all 10 who died in the crash later today.

Yesterday an Iraqi militant group, known as Ansar al-Aslam, made claims on a website that it shot down the aircraft using an anti-tank missile.

Later, the Arabic TV channel al-Jazeera also screened a video, which claimed to show evidence that insurgents brought down the plane in the desert 25 miles northwest of Baghdad.

But experts say that the militants would have found it hard work to bring the aircraft down with such a weapon.

The MoD also refused to comment on the contents of the video.

But Damian Kemp, aviation editor of Jane's Defence Weekly, said it would have been difficult for them to achieve this with such a weapon.

"It would be hard work,

"The aircraft would have to be moving low and slow as it would normally do when landing.

"It would be a tricky operation.

"If it was easy to do, they would have done it before but it is not impossible. There would probably have to be some luck involved," he added.

Chief of the Air Staff, Air Chief Marshal Sir Jock Stirrup, said that staff on the ground were already sifting through the wreckage.

He said: "I am aware that there is a great deal of speculation about what caused that crash, not least because of the video, purporting to be of a missile shooting down an aircraft.

"We all want to know what caused it and we all want to know that as quickly as we can, but we have to find out the facts. We have set up an investigation to look into it.

"We will go through it painstakingly, but this is going to take some time," he added.

In a statement to the House of Commons, Foreign Secretary Jack Straw said: "Our hearts go out to those that we lost on Sunday. We mourn them and we mourn those brave and dedicated servicemen who were on the aircraft with them.

"All of our sympathies go at this difficult time to their families and their loved ones."

If it was shot down, it would be the first RAF Hercules to have been lost in combat.

The investigation into why the RAF Hercules crashed could take weeks.

The marshy terrain and hostile local forces are likely to hamper the painstaking hunt for clues, a Ministry of Defence spokesman said today.

He described as "specul-ation" reports that they were considering the possibility a bomb may have been on board.

"We are not going to speculate about the causes until we have got a clear picture," the spokesman said.

"Bombs on board, missile strikes, explosions that's a matter for the crash investigators to work through and advise on."

Anthony Osborne